\f 






ISO 






'\-:>JJ^-^' 



i!le:!c3:Q.>T_ "t^ TVl>w. V\ 




C^j«J*r»_j»-»-X> 




^Tnr\r, 



>- \ 



/ V 









■i LX 




Class ^•z^'^n 

Book A^H 



LETTER 



-TO — 



MR. HENRY WHITTEMORE, 



OF THE 



ROCKLAP HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



IN RELATION TO THE 

MONUMENTI^ANDRE 



ERECTED BY 



MR. CYRUS W. FIELD. 



PBIXTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATIOX. 



TvTO^^KlVIBBlE,, I880. 



NEW YORK: 
Evening Post Job Printing Office, Broadway and Fulton St, 



NOTICE. 

The following letter was written in the hope of 
inducing the citizens of Rockland County to take 
no further action in relation to the Monument to 
Andre erected bv Mr. Field. 



"Nevis," Irvington P. 0., 

Westchester County, N. Y., 

October 16, 1885. 

Henry Whittemore, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — I have seen with surprise and regret 
the proceedings of a meeting held at Nyack a few 
days ago in relation to the destruction of the Andre 
monument at Tappan, in which meeting you took 
a prominent part. If, as your Chairman, Capt. 
Lewis, said in his few remarks, " This was not a 
" monument to Andre, but it was a monument to 
" the courage of George Washington, who hanged 
"the spy," the stone would never have been dis- 
turbed, but the worthy Captain is mistaken, or 
has not carefully read Dean Stanley's inscription. 

We all know the story, which you told, of the 
origin of this monument, and those of us who 
knew the eminent and kindly Dean, well knew 
that Dean Stanley's hobby, or one of them, was 
Major Andre, in connection to a certain extent 
with his greater hobby, Westminster Abbey. Mi\ 
Field's only motive in erecting the monument was, 
no doubt, to gratify Stanley, who, if he considered 
Andre a hero and martyr, had a right to his opin- 
ion, expressed in a monument in the proper place. 

I have said your Chairman is mistaken about 
the monument, which Dean Stanley at least, be- 
yond question, intended in honor of Andre. His 
inscription is as follows: 

" Here died, Oct. 2, 1780, Major John Andre, of 
"the British Army, who entered the American 



" Lines on a secret message to Benedict Arnold for 
" the surrender of West Point. His death, though 
" according to the stern code of war, moved even 
"his enemies to pity, and both armies mourned 
" the loss of one so young and so brave. A hun- 
" dred years after the execution, this stone was 
•' placed upon the spot where he lay by a Citizen 
"of the United States, against which he fought, 
' ' not to perpetuate the record of strife, but as a 
"token of those better feelings which have since 
" united two nations, one in race, one in language, 
" and one in religion." * * * 

Pausing for a moment over " those better feel- 
"ings,"and to show the danger of sentimental 
nonsense, we remember that about fifteen years 
only have passed since England made us a formal 
apology in a treaty — the first, it is believed, in her 
history — for grievous wrongs inflicted on us in our 
civil war, which justly aroused a deep feeling in 
the United States, not to mention the hostile say- 
ings of her most prominent men — DisraeH and 
Bright excepted — which were afterward apologized 
for or excused. I refer to this on account of the 
mischief such attempts at sentiment between 
nations create. Washington's rule, "enemies in 
" war, in peace friends," is the safest guide in all 
cases. 

Who, in ignorance of the facts, on reading this 
inscription, would imagine that Major Andre, Ad- 
jutant-General of the British Army, had been en- 
gaged for months in the attempt to seduce an 
officer of high rank in the American Army to 
betray his country and inflict upon it a deadly 



blow; opening a correspondence with Arnold's 
wife for the purpose, whom Andre had known as 
Miss Shippen; that a part of the price of the trea- 
son was "vulgar gold;" and that Andre himself 
expected to be made a Brigadier-General in case 
of success ? 

But this is not all. The direct inference from 
the phrase, "a hundred years after his execution," 
etc., is that the citizens of the United States 
have condoned Andre's crime; and " A Citizen of 
" the United States " — meaning the modest Mr. 
Field — acting for the whole community, has placed 
his stone as evidence of such forgiveness, and as 
token of "better feelings" than those under 
which Washington acted when he caused Andre 
to be hanged. The "stern Code of War" is 
another distinct criticism upon Washington's act, 
who, as is well known, refused Andre's applica- 
tion to be shot, backed by the urgent request of 
Colonel Hamilton, his Aid, and performed a pain- 
ful duty — simply because he considered it to be his 
duty — by affixing, in the mode of his death, the 
stigma of infamy upon Andre's act. 

As it stood, with the inscription of Dean Stan- 
ley, the monument was a sham and a fraud. Your 
Chairman, with others, possibly understands it 
one way ; Dean Stanley, who, through his super- 
serviceable friend, Mr. Field, caused it to be 
erected, in another and very different way, and 
the latter is plainly the true construction. 

In spite of all the tenderness with which Andre 
was treated by us while living, and his memory 
since his death, the people of this country have 



6 

not condoned his offense, and are satisfied he met 
his fate deservedly. They do not propose to erect, 
or wish to have erected, on our soil monuments to 
the man who was the instigator of a treason that 
has consigned Arnold's memory to perpetual in- 
famy ; and would have done us, in our struggle 
for independence, incalculable injury. The feeling 
on this point is clear, and not to be mistaken. 
I saw in a Rockland County paper two or three 
years ago, an article in which it was more forcibly 
than correctly stated, that " this craven stone" 
should not disgrace the county. 

I hope and believe that there is not another 
citizen in the United States with sufficient au- 
dacity to outrage a just national sentiment, as 
Mr. Field has done in this instance. He seems to 
suppose that his conduct will be overlooked or 
pardoned by subscribing to the monument for 
Andre's captors, and offering to erect one to 
Nathan Hale. His reliance upon the power of 
money is too great. The lazy indifference or good 
nature of the American people can be roused, and 
it will go hard with Mr. Field if he is unwise 
enough to repair this stone a third time. His 
"intention" to build a " Washington " Park on 
the spot of Andre's execution, with avenues called 
after Lafayette and Andre's captors, is a trans- 
parent device to try to escape from an embarrass- 
ing position, as well as an attempted bribe to 
Rockland County. 

My object in writing at such length to you, as 
a prominent member of the Rockland County 
Historical Society, is to urge you and the Society 



to have no further part or lot in this matter. It 
will lead to additional trouble. 

Besides indignant articles in the papers, I 
have yet to meet the first person who is not 
pleased at the destruction of the monument. One 
of those of this way of thinking bears the name 
of an officer, one of the highest in rank, of the 
Army of the Revolution. 

Your substituted "fourth" resolution, com- 
mending Mr. Field's zeal in perpetuating Revo- 
lutionary events, by erecting monuments, is a 
dangerous incentive for him. He is not happy in 
this line. Within three or four miles of Tappan 
is another historical spot of the Revolution, the 
site of the barn in which Baylor's Dragoons were 
massacred and bayoneted to death at night, while 
asleep and unresisting, by British Troops under 
General Grey, commonly called No Flint or Bayo- 
net Grey. Should Mr, Field happily make the 
acquaintance of his descendant, Earl Grey, he 
might put up another monument on that spot, to 
palliate or excuse General Grey's conduct. The act 
of the latter — though justly held infamous — bore 
no proportion to the injury Andre's plot would 
have caused us, had he not lost his presence of 
mind when stopped by the militiamen. 

Yours respectfully, 

A. HAMILTON. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





011 801 853 9 



,i«»r--^^v,?-: 



